An appellate court should not interfere with the judgment of acquittal unless a gross miscarriage of justice is committed.

The instant petition is filed by the petitioner informant against the judgment and order dated 17.07.2007 passed by the learned Addl. Sessions Judge, West Tripura, Khowai in ST (WT/K) 25 of 2007 whereby and whereunder the learned Addl. Sessions Judge acquitted all the accused respondents.

2. Heard Mr. D. Bhattacharji, learned counsel appearing for the petitioner as well as Mr. N. Das learned counsel appearing for the accused respondents. Also heard Mr. R. C Debnath, learned Addl. PP for the State.

3. The prosecution case, in short, is as follows:

On 08.10.2005 at about 3 a.m., while the informant PW1 was sleeping with his wife and children, suddenly he heard the low voice of some persons to the north of his house and when he woke up and placed his ear on the door, he heard the low voice of Suman Debnath, Rakhal Debnath, Manik Debnath and others. Then he called his son Imphal Chowdhury and daughter Smt. Anindita Chowdhury and when they opened the door, they noticed that the roof of 'Gola Ghar' made of polythene and 'Dhari' was burning and at the same time they also noticed that Suman Debnath, Rakhal Debnath, Manik Debnath, Manmohan Debnath, Ripan Debnath, Kapil Debnath and Biswajit Debnath were running away from their residential complex. They raised alarm and after hearing alarm, the neighbours came and extinguished the fire.

4. It is further stated that the informant purchased 10 (ten) gandas of Nal land from Late Nitai Debnath on payment of Rs.45,000/but said Nitai Debnath did not execute the registered deed of sale. The accused persons, being the relatives of Nitai Debnath, caused fire in his houses with a view to dispossess him from his dwelling hut and hence this case.

5. Upon receipt of the FIR, the police registered the case and after completion of the investigation submitted the charge sheet. Accordingly, the case was committed to the court of the learned Additional Sessions Judge, Khowai being the same is a sessions triable case. The learned Addl. Sessions Judge, after hearing the parties framed charges against all the seven accused respondents under Section 436 read with Section 34 of the IPC. The accused pleaded not guilty and claimed to be tried.

6. Prosecution examined as many as 13 witnesses, including the Investigating Officer, to establish his case and also produced some documents which were admitted as Exhibit 1 to 7 and Exhibit MO 1 series.

7. Defence did not adduce any oral evidence but during cross examination, attention of the witnesses was drawn to some portion of the respondents’ 161 statements which were marked as exhibits A to F.

8. Learned trial court after considering the evidence on record and examining the accused persons under Section 313 CrPC acquitted all of them on benefit of doubt.

9. Mr. Bhattacharji while praying for setting aside the impugned judgment would contend that the learned trial court failed to consider the evidence on record, particularly the evidence of PW1, PW2, PW3 and PW12.

10. On the other hand, Mr. Das, learned counsel, appearing for the accusedrespondents submits that the learned trial court rightly acquitted the accused respondents as the prosecution failed to establish its case. He further submits that it would be evident from the evidence of PW1 & PW2 that they are admittedly blind, therefore, there was no scope for them to identify the accused persons by way of seeing. They stated in their deposition that they could identify the accused persons hearing their low voice but fact remains that in their 161 statement they did not disclose the said fact of hearing of low voice. Thus, identification by way of hearing low voice was for the first time stated in the court which cannot be admitted as evidence. He further submits that the PW3 and PW12 also disclosed the names of the accused persons for the first time in the court.

11. As the whole prosecution case is based on these four witnesses, it would be proper for this court to discuss about their evidences. Accord